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A project of Common Dreams

For Immediate Release
Contact: Caitlin MacNeal,COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER,(202) 347-1122,cmacneal@pogo.org

Lockheed Still Tops Misconduct Charts, But No Misconduct Pattern for Over a Third of Top Gov't Contractors

The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) is releasing its updated Federal Contractor Misconduct Database (FCMD), with a new top 100 ranking based on the fiscal year 2009 data of USAspending.gov.
POGO's release is concurrent with the operational date for the federal
government's contractor responsibility database -- the Federal Awardee
Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS) -- which will not
be publicly accessible.

WASHINGTON

The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) is releasing its updated Federal Contractor Misconduct Database (FCMD), with a new top 100 ranking based on the fiscal year 2009 data of USAspending.gov.
POGO's release is concurrent with the operational date for the federal
government's contractor responsibility database -- the Federal Awardee
Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS) -- which will not
be publicly accessible.

For 27 of the top 100 recipients of federal contract dollars, POGO
did not find any instances of misconduct. "The fact that over a quarter
of the top 100 contractors have no known instances of misconduct is
further evidence that we should not accept contractor misconduct as a
cost of doing business," said POGO Investigator Neil Gordon.

An additional 11 contractors in the top 100 have only one known
instance, showing that more than one-third of the companies in the
database do not show a pattern of misconduct.

However, 63 contractors did have multiple instances of misconduct, and once again Lockheed Martin
tops the ranking with 50 instances of civil, criminal, or
administrative misconduct since 1995. In FY 2009, Lockheed Martin
received almost $40 billion in federal contract awards.

The top 100 contractors received over $296 billion in contracts in
FY 2009, accounting for 56 percent of the $524 billion in contracts the
government awarded that year. As of today, these 100 contractors have
accumulated 642 misconduct instances and over $18.7 billion in monetary
penalties since 1995. Counting previous years, the FCMD now includes
information on 151 federal contractors and 1,049 resolved and pending
misconduct instances.

The updated top 100 ranking includes 26 new contractors from a wide
variety of industry sectors and home countries. Italian defense and
aeronautics giant Finmeccanica, S.p.A. made the cut, as did the Bahrain National Oil Company (BANOCO), Dutch foodservice logistics provider Supreme Group Holding SARL, German construction and engineering firm Hochtief AG and Swiss pharmaceutical manufacturer Novartis AG.

Novartis and two other pharmaceutical companies new to the ranking, Schering-Plough Corporation (which merged with former top 100 contractor Merck & Co, Inc. in 2009) and Pfizer, Inc.,
received $3.7 billion in contracts in FY 2009 and have a combined total
of $4.7 billion in penalties, or about 25 percent of the misconduct
penalty total.

POGO's analysis is not exhaustive because it cannot capture
undisclosed settlements and financial settlement terms that may not be
publicly available. "POGO is happy to offer its own contractor
misconduct database as an open resource, but hopes that the information
in the government's own database, FAPIIS, will soon be accessible to
the public," Gordon said.

For detailed listings on each of the top contractors, please visit POGO's Federal Contractor Misconduct Database.

The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) is an independent nonprofit that investigates and exposes corruption and other misconduct in order to achieve a more effective, accountable, open and honest federal government.